Breach

About 146,000 users of USAJobs.gov had their personal information compromised in recent attacks on Monster.com, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) disclosed this week.

An Ohio judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by two former Ohio University students in response to the schools April 2006 data breaches.

Monster.com is beefing up security measures in light of the recent data theft that exposed the personal information of at least 1.3 million users to hackers.

The burglary of a U.S. prisoners of war (POW) support groups offices has netted thieves the personal information, including addresses and Social Security numbers, of more than 35,000 veterans and their families.

With the looming threats of publicly exposed personal data breaches, mishandled confidential partner information and lost intellectual property assets, an increasing number of enterprises are investigating options for securing data stored on both tape- and disk-based media. Since tape cartridges are most often exposed outside the physical security of the data center while in transit and in storage, they are most often the first point of attention for storage security projects.

Recent high profile data breaches have underscored the need for robust information security within organizations. But with names like Pfizer, TJX and the Department of Veterans Affairs dominating headlines, smaller organizations might infer that they have nothing to fear. Nevertheless, no company — large or small — is immune to a data breach or network intrusion, and the best form of protection is a holistic and proactive approach.

Its a sunny day somewhere thousands of miles away from your data center. A savvy hacker sits in front of his monitor. He checks the current black market rates for U.S. Social Security and credit card numbers then runs down his list of potential targets — a major university, a financial services company, two retail chains and an energy company.

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes worldwide. In the U.S. alone, identify theft happens every 79 seconds, becoming the fastest growing crime in America. In light of the safety net available in technology to mitigate the risk of unintended personal data disclosure the continuing wave of data breaches that are fueling identity theft are simply unacceptable.